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Despite its modest weight the Mesh Asus F3JC is quite bulky. On the whole it's sturdy, although its catches feel flimsy. The F3JC is reasonably fast, with a 1.8GHz Intel Core Duo T2350 processor, 1GB of RAM and a generous 100GB hard disk. It experienced some problems running our WorldBench benchmarking tests, but eventually achieved a solid score of 61.

The Mesh Asus F3JC's 15.4in WXGA glossy screen displays still images and movies well, with high levels of brightness and contrast. And this despite it relying on a mid-range nVidia GeForce Go 7300 graphics card. This struggled to run our gaming tests and managed a poor 5fps.

Located behind the keyboard, the Mesh Asus F3JC's speakers produce tinny sound. But we were impressed by the F3JC's connectivity options, It supports a, b and g wireless networks, Bluetooth and wireless LAN.

There's a 1.3Mp camera built into the Mesh Asus F3JC's lid, with a microphone located beside it. Unfortunately, all this and its four USB ports couldn't mask the Mesh's paltry three-in-one card reader. And the quick access buttons are thin and difficult to select.

The Mesh Asus F3JC's large touchpad's scrolling panel is poorly marked and easy to activate by mistake. However, we were pleased with the generous keyboard that the Asus' dimensions make possible. Mesh has preinstalled Vista Home Premium on the Mesh Asus F3JC.

We think the Mesh Asus F3JC is more of a desktop-replacement than a portable PC. Its battery pack protrudes from the back making it even larger. It produced a lot of system noise and, although we expected this on demanding apps, it was an issue even when browsing the web. Nevertheless, this laptop presents a solid feature set at a good price.

The Asus U36JC ultraportable laptop has lots of tangible benefits: good power from its second-generation Core i5 processor, lots of ports, and features like a quick start mode that lets you browse the web before you boot into Windows.

Smart home- or wearable tech: which is more likely to benefit your digital life this year?

I'm more likely to buy smart home- than wearable tech this yearI'm more likely to buy wearable- than smart home tech this yearI'll probably buy both smart home- and wearable tech this yearI'm unlikely to buy smart home- or wearable tech this yearNot sure/don't know